Paros Taverna

Sometimes, it seems like most restaurants fall into the "okay" category.  You know, the food was fine, but not life-changing.  Yet, how many meals can we expect to live up to those lofty expectations?  Therefore, we have a very small handful of outstanding meals, a large number of decent meals and a small number of terrible ones. And honestly, those terrible meals are necessary so that we can set some sort of baseline as what is decent and what is not.  Well, Yianni's in New West had the honour of being that baseline for not-so-good Greek food. Not sure why they have such a high rating on Urbanspoon... Big D wanted to exorcise that particular meal and suggested one of his favourites - Paros in Burnaby.  Actually, it was in Coquitlam before they moved into the old Anducci's near Lougheed Mall.

Originally, Slick was supposed to join us, but he had a meeting of some sort.  Bah.  He doesn't have his priorities straight.  Meeting or food?  Duh.  But that didn't stop us from ordering enough food for 3 people!  We started with the Calamari Dinner which included the tentacles.  That made us happy campers because that is the best part.  The squid was only lightly dusted with batter which made it light and not too greasy.  On the other hand, it wasn't as crisp as we would've liked, yet the squid was far from chewy.  The tzatziki was on the lighter side.  It was not devoid of flavour though and exhibited a a good amount of dill. For me, I rarely pass up the opportunity to do some lamb (uh...  wait, that's not what I meant!).  Anyways, the Roast Lamb was somewhat stringy and chewy.  Not exactly what I was expecting...  On the other hand, it had a rich roasted flavour along with a nice hit of herbs.  The roasted potato was on the firmer side and was well-seasoned.  I didn't have any lemon kick, hence it was just a roast potato.  The rice was on the softer side and despite being a little different (it had a considerable amount of dill and tomatoes), it was okay.

After my Moussaka disaster the week before, I was pleased with the one I had here.  There was a good bechamel-to-meat ratio where the meat was moist and flavourful (with good hits of allspice and cinnamon) while the eggplant was tender while not mushy.  The bechamel sauce was of a good consistency where it was thick enough, yet not gummy nor chewy.  Lastly, we were presented with some Baklava on the house.  Personally, I'm not a huge fan of this dessert due to its sweetness.  And yes, this one was pretty sweet.  The layers of phyllo were soft and a touch chewy.  All-in-all, Paros did the job and was, at the very least, far better than Yianni's.  I was a bit disappointed with the lamb, yet everything else was more than acceptable.



The Good:
- Decent eats
- We got friendly service
- Comfy digs

The Bad:
- Curiously, the lamb was not tender
- On the pricier side